The Frank Belknap Long Science Fiction Novel

by Frank Belknap Long

  Then the temperature began slowly to drop. The sun sank lower. Its brightness diminished, and his cheeks began to tingle with the cold.

  There was a slight wind blowing over the desert, raising dust flurries on the summits of the tallest dunes, causing the gray patches of crust lichen, which were scattered widely over the plain, to change color as their threadlike surfaces were ruffled by the breeze.

  Far in the distance he could see a “canal,” one of those strange blue-green declivities in the terrain which looked from the air like an actual waterway, and had deceived—or bewildered—three generations of men.

  Despite the increasing cold, Corriston did not moderate his stride. He let his thoughts dwell on the most imaginative of the canal speculations. It had been proven completely false, but its originality fascinated him. Long ago, the theory held, there had been volcanic activity on Mars. Great faults or fissures had opened up in the planet’s crust, and when the coming of spring thawed the polar ice caps, curtains of fog swirled equatorward, filling those natural crevices with swirling rivers of mist.

  Corriston stopped walking for a moment, shifting the weight of his equipment slightly, easing a too heavy drag on his right shoulder. He made sure that the thin flexible tube which connected his oxygen mask with the small tank on his back was securely clipped into place at both ends, tested the harness buckle which supported supplies which were as necessary to him as breathing, and took a turn up and down the sand, stamping, shaking himself, to make absolutely certain that nothing vital had been jarred loose.

  Then he was under way again, moving along at a steady pace over the rust-red desert, the ship now lost to view far behind him, his mind leaping ahead to the very great dangers which he was determined to face and overcome so long as one slender thread of hope remained.

  16

  It might have been almost any sleepy little town on Earth, picked at random from a train window—a dust bowl town with a prairie name: Hawk’s Valley, Buzzard’s Gulch, and the like. It might have been, but it wasn’t.

  The buildings were thinner, of more precarious construction, and each had been built to house three or more families. They were at unusual angles on sloping ledges where the soil was firm enough to resist overnight erosion from winds of hurricane force, and in many places their prefabricated metal foundations were pierced and supported by shafts of solid rock.

  Without modern technology at its most advanced, the town could never have been built. Yet in the streets of the town there was a village rudeness of construction which no pioneering effort could quite efface: a wide main street that gleamed red in the sunlight on which three caterpillar tractors stood stalled, their guard rails caked with yellow mud; a pool of stagnant black water with a wooden plank thrown haphazardly across it; a discarded fuel container upended against a half-rusted away metal cable, and the remnants of an hydraulic actuator overgrown with hardy lichens that had colored it yellow and ash gray. And here and there, projecting from the tumbled sand, were spiny cactus-like growths.

  Yet it was not too small a town. Its inhabitants numbered eight thousand, two-thirds of them men. There were ninety-seven children. It was not too small a town, and now, in each of the houses, a new day was beginning.

  At least thirty men and a few women had collected about the haggard-eyed desert straggler. Every one of them hung on his words. Every one of these people had been ruined by Ramsey’s rapacious greed. Their past accomplishments were destroyed; their futures were non-existent. They lived in a terrorized state, from hand-to-mouth, indifferent now to any more wrongdoing that could be visited upon them. The fires of their hatred for Ramsey gave them the basic energy to go on existing.

  Out of grinding desperation they had turned to Henley, had given him a free hand, even when most, in their heart-of-hearts, knew he was a scoundrel. The fact was that he was the only man among them not so cowed as to be actively enraged against Ramsey. He promised that the mines would be given back to the people. And, having nothing, they believed everything.

  They came from everywhere in the colony, and from every trade and profession. Who was this man? And was he friend or foe?

  The crowd grew slowly. Despite the shouts and the sudden stir of excitement which had greeted the speaker on his arrival, there was no headlong rush to surround him. The colonists emerged from their lodgings and converged calmly upon the square, some having the look of tradesfolk concerned with a possible interruption of business, and others seemingly intent only on what the stranger might have to say.

  It was unusually warm for so early an hour, the temperature well up in the mid-forties, and there was no need for the heat-generating inner garments, only for oxygen masks and heavy outdoor clothing and the careful avoidance of too much muscular exertion in the absence of weighted shoes.

  This is madness, Corriston told himself. I am in no condition to convince these people, to make them understand. I should have rested first. Three hours’ sleep would have helped. I should have asked for food.

  Corriston felt suddenly tongue-tied. Words were failing him when he needed them most. His speech became halting and confused. He had been talking for twenty minutes—twenty minutes at least—but suddenly he was quite sure that he hadn’t succeeded in convincing anyone that he was speaking only the simple truth.

  He looked at the faces before him a little more intently and saw what he had not noticed before: everyone was waiting for him to go on; everyone seemed to be hanging on his words.

  Had he misjudged them after all? Or had he misjudged his own capacity to be persuasive, to talk with conviction when his very life hung in the balance?

  There could be no doubt on that score. His life did hang in the balance. They’d make short shift of him if they thought he was on Ramsey’s side.

  “It isn’t Ramsey I’m concerned about,” he heard himself saying. “I’m pleading with you to face up to the truth about yourselves. You trusted Henley because you were desperate. You couldn’t put your trust in a weak or indecisive man. You needed a tool with a cutting edge. That I can understand. But you picked the wrong man. Henley doesn’t want to see justice done. He doesn’t want to help you at all. He wants to help himself at your expense, to help himself in a vicious, brutal way.”

  “That’s a lie,” someone in the crowd said. “Henley’s a good man.”

  Corriston freed himself from his dust-caked coat. He shrugged it off and let it drop to the sand. Then he straightened his oxygen mask and went on: “It’s not a lie. It’s the simple truth.”

  He wondered why he had shrugged off his warmest garment. It was cold, he was shivering, and it had been a ridiculous thing to do. Had he intended it as a challenge? In a crazy, confused, subconscious way, was he offering to fight anyone who disagreed with him.

  He suddenly realized that he was a little drunk. Not on alcohol, but on a slight excess of oxygen. He fingered the gauge on his mask, cutting down the tank inflow, cursing himself for his delay in doing so.

  Had he convinced anyone? He looked at the faces about him and was astonished by their impassivity. Few of the men or women before him seemed either angry or disturbed. They just seemed to be quietly listening.

  Suddenly he realized that he was completely in error. They were convinced, persuaded, almost completely on his side. Their silence was in itself revealing, just as the hush which precedes an avalanche can be convincing, or the stillness which precedes a storm at sea.

  They were waiting for him to go on.

  He talked for thirty more minutes and then there was a long silence, punctuated only by the harsh breathing of a few men who seemed to disagree.

  17

  Corriston knew that the few who disagreed were prepared to make trouble, but he was not prepared for the violence which ensued.

  Fights broke out in the crowd, singly and in groups. The colonists with strong convictions took issue with the few who disagreed. And
the few who disagreed had strong convictions, too.

  Two men about the same in height were suddenly down on the ground raining fisticuffs at each other.

  “Damn you, Reeves, I’ll break your jaw. From the first minute I saw Henley I knew he was a scoundrel.”

  “Yeah, and who else but a scoundrel could hold his own with a rat like Ramsey. We can call the turn on him if he goes too far.”

  There was an explosion of cursing and Corriston could see five more men fighting, moving backwards as they exchanged blows toward the periphery of the crowd.

  There was nothing he could do to stop the fighting. He was close to exhaustion, hardly able to stand. He desperately needed food and rest—a long rest flat on his back.

  Suddenly he realized that he had victory within his grasp. Most things worthwhile in life called for a decisive effort of will. He decided suddenly that he couldn’t just let the fighting go on. He had to take a firm stand himself, had to convince everyone that he was prepared to fight for his convictions.

  He moved forward into the crowd. He grabbed one doubter by the shoulder, held fast to him for an instant, and then sent his fist crashing into the astonished man’s jaw.

  The doubter folded in complete silence. Corriston stepped back from him and said in a voice loud enough to carry to the rim of the crowd: “I don’t care how many of you I have to take on. Every word I’ve said is the truth. If you can only settle it by killing me, you may as well start trying.”

  There was a silence then. Even the sound of the breeze rustling the garments of the colonists, stirring little flurries of sand along the main street, seemed to become muted. Far off between the houses a clock struck the time. It seemed very loud in the stillness.

  It amazed Corriston a little, even in his exhausted state, how determinedly a challenge like that could be accepted at face value. He was quite sure that he had won a victory; that nine-tenths of the colonists were on his side. But everyone remained silent, everyone drew back in tight-lipped silence while the issue was put to the test.

  A tall man with a lean, lantern-jawed face approached Corriston and said: “I’m going to tell you exactly what I think. Henley isn’t an easy man to understand. He keeps his thoughts to himself and he may have had his own special reasons for pulling the wool over your eyes. He’s looking out for our best interests; I’m sure of that. But what good would it do me to knock you down to prove it?”

  “No good at all,” Corriston said. “But try knocking me down if you want to.”

  “I’m not going to try,” the lantern-jawed man said. “I think you’re lying. That’s all I have to say.”

  Corriston watched him disappear in the crowd and shook his head. He felt like a man with a fly swatter in his hand. He had won a victory and yet if he failed to swat a few flies no one would believe that he was telling the truth.

  Finally he got his chance. A thickset, dark-browed man with a trouble-seeking aspect came up and hurled insults at him in a markedly offensive way.

  Corriston hit him three times. The first blow doubled him up, the second dropped him to his knees; the third flattened him out on the sand.

  Corriston stepped back and surveyed the crowd. Their response now was overwhelmingly favorable.

  It wasn’t a complete victory. There were still doubters, still arguments going on, still a hatred for Ramsey that overflowed and made a mockery of the few voices raised in his defense.

  And Corriston was glad that not too many voices were raised in Ramsey’s defense. He had not come to plead Ramsey’s cause, and he wanted all of the colonists to know that. He only asked that a truce be declared, an end to the fierce, immediate hatreds, while a scoundrel was attacked by men who had been lied to, cheated and betrayed. He moved still further forward into the crowd, prepared to fight again if he had to, prepared to back up his arguments with the simple, primitive and direct use of his fists.

  He swayed suddenly and realized that he was at the end of his endurance, and now would in all probability make a complete fool of himself. He would commit the unforgivable folly of issuing a challenge that he couldn’t back up.

  He shook his head violently, trying to clear it, but his dizziness increased. The landscape about him began to pinwheel and he saw the streets of the colony through a wavering yellow mist. The store fronts danced, the rusting and discarded machinery on a side street began to move and come to life, to clatter and waltz about.

  A woman moving toward him seemed to grow in height, her oxygen mask widening out, overspreading her face. For a moment she seemed like an impossible ballet figure in a danse macabre, pivoting about on her toes as a caterpillar tractor came rushing toward her through the thin air of Mars.

  Then two colonists were supporting him, holding him tightly by the elbows, refusing to let him collapse. It was outrageous, because he wanted to collapse. He wanted to sink down, to let sleep wash over him, to forget all of his troubles in merciful oblivion.

  But the two colonists were very stubborn. They refused to let him collapse. He only wanted to go to sleep, to forget all of his troubles, but the two colonists were like doctors in a hospital, very stern, very patient, and seemingly determined to keep him on his feet.

  Somehow they must have failed. They must have failed because when he became fully conscious again he was lying between cool white sheets, and a woman in a white nurse’s uniform was bending over him. By straining his eyes he could see two men who looked like doctors standing just beyond her.

  The two men appeared to be discussing him, but when he struggled to a sitting position and stared hard at them they came toward him with reassuring smiles, and one of them said: “Take it easy, now. You’re going to be all right.”

  “I…i must have passed out,” he stammered. “I was ready to pass out before I started talking. Is this a hospital? I guess it is. I should have come here immediately. Forty hours in the desert and I arrive half-delirious and make a fool of myself.”

  “Take it easy,” one of the doctors said. “You didn’t make a fool of yourself. Quite the contrary.”

  Oh, brother, he thought. They’re lying to me to spare me, or something. “I have a vague recollection of not being able to stand, of talking my head off and then collapsing and making a complete fool of myself, of accomplishing nothing at all. I swung hard at two or three people. I knocked one man down, flat on his back. But that was a crazy thing to do. It’s no way to win the confidence or respect of anyone.”

  “Look,” one of the doctors said, taking firm hold of his shoulder and shaking him gently. “Don’t go reproaching yourself. You’ve got nine-tenths of the colony behind you.”

  “You mean—”

  “Sure, you convinced almost everyone. And that was a miracle in itself, considering how close to collapse you were. You were running a high fever. You were dehydrated. Your skin was as dry as a parched lichen. Yet you stood there and convinced them. That’s the gospel truth.”

  “They’ve chosen you as their leader,” the second doctor said. “They’re going after Henley before it’s too late. They feel exactly as you do about Ramsey’s daughter. Not about Ramsey perhaps—but about the kidnapping of a helpless girl. None of them have any liking for Henley now.”

  18

  Corriston walked out into the central square and stood there. For a moment no one said a word. One of the doctors was there with him. He’d had a sandwich and coffee before leaving the hospital and his nerves felt steady and his voice was pitched low.

  “I don’t know a single one of these men, Dr. Tomlinson,” he said. “I spent a week in the colony four years ago, but I just don’t see anyone I recognize. I’m afraid you’ll have to introduce me around.”

  It took a full hour to really get acquainted, to plan what had to be done, to check over the tractors, the ammunition supplies, the equipment of each and every man.

  They had to cross eighty-seve
n miles of desert to a heavily guarded cave and then move on perhaps to Ramsey’s fortress. They had to be prepared for any eventuality.

  The morale was good. Corriston could sense the grim determination in every man, the faith in their mission, the anger. It cheered him.

  He walked around between the tractors, listening to stray bits of talk, getting better acquainted with everyone as the minutes sped by.

  He took out his watch and looked at it and decided that time was running short.

  Give each and every man twenty minutes, he thought. Then we get rolling. Thirty caterpillar tractors and two hundred and ten men. And in the ship are two men holed up—possibly three now—with all the portable fighting equipment of a two thousand ton spaceship at their disposal. And if Henley has returned—

  Suddenly Corriston found himself sweating in the silence, despite the cold, despite the hoar frost that was beginning to collect on the rim of his oxygen mask. There was a split second of shouting from one of the tractors and then it started up, with a coughing and spitting that drowned out the human voices.

  All along the wide, rust-red street other tractors came to life. In the thin air of Mars, in the pale sky, a single blue cloud hung suspended.

  It was wispy thin, incredibly thin, a hollow mockery of a cloud. But the scene below would have been less remarkable had the sky remained cloudless, for then Mars would have seemed completely unlike Earth and the human drama less compelling.

  There was something tremendous in the forward march of the tractors, in the clatter and the rising dust, the shouts of the men at the controls and the women who ran swift-footed along the sand to urge them to greater fortitude. The women knew that endurance would be needed, for twenty-first century weapons of warfare could destroy a hundred tractors and spatter the desert with blood before retaliation could become complete and justice be fully satisfied.

  So the women did not weep or lament. They ran parallel with the tractors, urging their men onward, stifling their own inner fears in the greatness of the moment.